A Brief History of the
Black Panther Partyand
Its Place In the
Black Liberation MovementBy Sundiata
Acoli

"The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense was founded in October, 1966,
in Oakland, California by Huey P.
Newton and Bobby Seale. The
name was shortened to the Black Panther Party (BPP) and it began spreading
eastward through the Black urban ghetto colonies across country.

In the summer of '68, David Brothers established a BPP branch in Brooklyn,
New York, and a few months later Lumumba Shakur set up a branch in Harlem,
New York. i joined the Harlem BPP in the fall of '68 and served as its
Finance Officer until arrested on April 2, 1969 in the Panther 21 Conspiracy
case which was the opening shot in the government's nationwide attack on
the BPP. Moving westward, Police Departments in each city made military
raids on BPP offices or homes in Philadelphia, Chicago, Newark, Omaha,
Denver, New Haven, San Diego, Los Angeles, and other cities, murdering
some Panthers and arresting others.

After i and most other Panther 21 members were held in jail and on trial
for two years, We were all acquitted of all charges and released. Most
of us returned to the community and to the BPP but by then COINTELPRO
had taken its toll. The BPP was rife with dissension, both internal and
external. The internal strife, division, intrigue, and paranoia had become
so ingrained that eventually most members drifted or were driven, away.
Some continued the struggle on other fronts and some basically cooled out
altogether. The BPP limped on for several more years, then died what seemed
a natural death.

History will be the ultimate judge of the BPP's place in the Black Liberation
Movement (BLM). But in these troubled times Afrikan people in the U.S.
need to investigate both the positive and negative aspects of the BPP's
history in order to learn from those hard lessons already paid for in blood.
In particular We need to learn the reasons for the BPP's rapid rise to
prominence, the reason for its ability to move so many Afrikans and other
nationalities, and the reason for its demise during its brief sojourn across
the American scene. It's not possible in this short paper, on short notice,
to provide much of what is necessary, so this paper will confine itself
to pointing out some of the broader aspects of the BPP's positive and negative
contributions to the BLM.
The Positive Aspects of the
BPP's Contributions

1. Self-Defense:
This is one of the fundamental areas in which the BPP contributed to the
BLM. It's also one of the fundamental things that
set the BPP apart from most previous Black organizations and which attracted members (particularly the youth), mass
support, and a mass following. The concept
is not only sound, it's also common sense. But it must be implemented correctly, otherwise it can prove more detrimental than beneficial. The
self-defense policies of the BPP need to be analyzed in this light by present
day Afrikan organizations. All history has shown that this government will
bring its police and military powers to bear on any group which truly seeks
to free Afrikan people. Any Black "freedom" organization which ignores
self-defense does so at its own peril.

2. Revolutionary
Nationalist Ideology: The BPP was a nationalist organization. Its
main goal was the national liberation of Afrikan people in the U.S., and
it restricted its membership to Blacks only. It was also revolutionary.
The BPP theories and practices were based on socialist principles.
It was anti-capitalist and struggled for a socialist revolution of U.S.
society. On the national level, the BPP widely disseminated socialist base
programs to the Afrikan masses. Internationally, it provided Afrikans
in the U.S. with a broader understanding of our relationship to the Afrikan
continent, the emerging independent Afrikan nations, Third World nations,
Socialist nations, and all the Liberation Movements associated with these
nations. Overall the ideology provided Afrikans here with a more concrete
way of looking at and analyzing the world. Heretofore much of Black analysis
of the world, and the society in which We live, was based on making ourselves
acceptable to White society, proving to Whites that We were human, proving
to Whites that We were ready for equality, proving We were equal to Whites,
disproving racist ideas held by Whites, struggling for integration or equal
status with Whites, theories of "loving the enemy", "hating the enemy",
"they're all devils", spookism, and other fuzzy images of how the real
world worked.

3. Mass Organizing
Techniques: Another fundamental thing that attracted members and
mass support to the BPP was its policy of
"serving
the people". This was a policy of going to the masses, living among
them, sharing their burdens, and organizing the masses to implement their
own solutions to the day to day problems that were of great concern to
them. By organizing and implementing the desires of the masses, the BPP
organized community programs ranging from free breakfast for children,
to free health clinics, to rent strikes resulting in tenant ownership
of their buildings, to Liberation School for grade-schoolers, to free clothing
drives, to campaigns for community control of schools, community control
of police, and campaigns to stop drugs, crime, and police murder and brutality
in the various Black colonies across America. For these reasons, and others,
the influence of the BPP spread far beyond its actual membership. Not only
did the BPP programs teach self-reliance, but years later the government
established similar programs such as free school lunch, expanded medicare
and day care facilities, and liberalized court procedures for tenant takeovers
of poorly maintained housing, partly if not primarily in order to snuff
out the memory of previous similar BPP programs and the principle of self-reliance.

4. Practice of Women's
Equality: Another positive contribution of the BPP was its advocating
and practice of equality for women throughout all levels of the organization
and in society itself. This occurred at a time when most Black Nationalist
organizations were demanding that the woman's role be in the home and/or
one step behind the Black man, and at a time when the whole country was
going through a great debate on the woman's liberation issue.

5. Propaganda Techniques:
The BPP made significant contributions to the art of propaganda. It was
very adept at spreading its message and ideas through its newspaper The
Black Panther, mass rallies, speaking tours, slogans, posters, leaflets,
cartoons, buttons, symbols (i.e., the clenched fist), graffiti, political
trials, and even funerals. The BPP also spread its ideas through very skillful
use of the establishment's t.v., radio, and print media. One singular indication,
although there are others, of the effectiveness of BPP propaganda
techniques is that even today, over a decade later, a large part of the
programs shown on t.v. are still "police stories" and many of the roles
available to Black actors are limited to police roles. A lot of this has
to do with the overall process of still trying to rehabilitate the image
of the police from its devastating exposure during the Panther era, and
to prevent the true role of the police in this society from being exposed
again.
The Negative Aspects of the
BPP Contributions

1. Leadership
Corrupted:COINTELPRO
eventually intimidated and corrupted all three of the BPP's top leaders:
Huey
P. Newton, Bobby Seale and Eldridge
Cleaver. Each, in their own way, caved in to the pressures and began
acting in a manner that was deliberately designed to destroy the BPP, and
to disillusion not only Party members but Afrikan people in America for
years to come.
COINTELPRO's
hopes were that Afrikans in America would be so disillusioned that never
again would they trust or follow any Afrikan leader or organization which
advocated real solutions to Black oppression.

2. Combined Above
and Underground: This was the most serious structural flaw in the
BPP. Party members who functioned openly in the BPP offices, or organized
openly in the community, by day might very well have been the same people
who carried out armed operations at night. This provided the police with
a convenient excuse to make raids on any and all BPP offices, or
members homes, under the pretext that they were looking for suspects, fugitives,
weapons, and or explosives. It also sucked the BPP into taking the un-winnable
position of making stationary defenses of BPP offices. There should have
been a clear separation between the above ground Party and the underground
armed apparatus. Also small military forces should never adopt, as a general
tactic, the position of making stationary defenses of offices, homes, buildings,
etc.

3. Rhetoric
Outstripped Capabilities: Although the BPP was adept at the art
of propaganda and made very good use of its own and the establishment's
media, still too many Panthers fell into the habit of making boisterous
claims in the public media, or selling "wolf tickets" that they couldn't
back up. Eventually, they weren't taken seriously anymore. The press, some
of whom were police agents, often had only to stick a microphone under
a Panther's nose to make him or her begin spouting rhetoric. This often
played into the hands of those who were simply looking for slanderous material
to air or to provide possible intelligence information to the police.

4. Lumpen Tendencies:
It can be safely said that the largest segment of the New York City BPP
membership (and probably nationwide) were workers who held everyday jobs.
Other segments of the membership were semi-proletariat, students, youths,
and lumpen-proletariat. The lumpen tendencies within some members were
what the establishment's media (and some party members) played-up the most.
Lumpen tendencies are associated with lack of discipline, liberal
use of alcohol, marijuana, and curse words loose sexual morals, a criminal
mentality, and rash actions. These tendencies in some Party members provided
the media with better opportunities than they would otherwise have had
to play up this aspect, and to slander the Party, which diverted public
attention from much of the positive work done by the BPP.

5. Dogmatism:
Early successes made some Panthers feel that they were the only possessors
of absolute truths. Some became arrogant and dogmatic in their dealings
with Party members, other organizations, and even the community. This turned
people off.

6. Failure to Organize
Economic Foundations in Community: The BPP preached socialist politics.
They were anti-capitalist and this skewered their concept of building economic
foundations in the community. They often gave the impression that to engage
in any business enterprise was to engage in capitalism and they too
frequently looked with disdain upon the small business people in the community.
As a result the BPP built few businesses which generated income other than
the Black Panther newspaper, or which could provide self employment to
its membership and to people in the community. The BPP failed to encourage
the Black community to set up its own businesses as a means of building
an independent economic foundation which could help break "outsiders"
control of the Black community's economics, and move it toward economic
self reliance.

7. TV Mentality:
The 60's were times of great flux. A significant segment of the U.S. population
engaged in mass struggle. The Black Liberation, Native American, Puerto
Rican, Asian, Chicano, Anti-War, White Revolutionary, and Woman's Liberation,
Movements were all occurring more or less simultaneously during this era.
It appears that this sizable flux caused some Panthers to think that a
seizure of state power was imminent or that a revolutionary struggle is
like a quick paced TV program. That is, it comes on at 9 p.m., builds to
a crescendo by 9:45, and by 9:55 Victory! all in time to make
the 10 O'Clock News. When it didn't happen after a few years, that is,
Afrikans in the U.S. still were not free, no revolution occurred, and worse,
the BPP was everywhere on the defensive, taking losses and riddled with
dissension, many members became demoralized, disillusioned, and walked
away or went back to old lifestyles. They were not psychologically prepared
for a long struggle. In hindsight it appears that the BPP didn't do enough
to root out this TV mentality in some members, but did in others, which
is an aspect to ponder on.

Although the BPP made serious errors, it also
gained a considerable measure of success and made several significant new
contributions to the BLM. The final judgment of history may very well show
that in its own way the BPP added the final ingredient to the Black Agenda
necessary to attain real freedom: armed struggle and that this was the
great turning point which ultimately set the Black Liberation Movement
on the final road to victory."